4 Ways to Use SEO for Your Website Indexing
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In order for your website to have an impact in your business, it needs to be found by the people who want what you’re offering. Otherwise, it’s just a pretty asset that’s not helping you grow your business and bring in clients and sales.
When someone wants to find something, where do they still go first? Google. Which is why SEO is important. It’s how you’ll teach Google to properly index your website. This is especially important now with these social media platforms constantly changing the algorithms. It’s getting harder and harder to get your content in front of your audience.
Many people have abandoned Instagram because there’s just no reach anymore. They are putting up a 9-Grid and saying goodbye to making daily content.
So if social media isn’t working as well for us anymore, then we have to shift our strategies. And SEO will always be at the top of the visibility list. Google isn’t going anywhere, though they do also change their algorithm and now they have implemented AI in search results. It’s annoying, but we can’t control it. All we can do is show up, make quality content and not put so much pressure on ourselves to see it “perform.”
There are four areas you should be concentrating on when it comes to maximizing your website’s SEO opportunities. These are in addition to the marketing you do every day to help people find you. SEO is something that essentially runs in the background.
All website builders have the ability to manage SEO, including Squarespace (you can get one of our templates here).
UPDATE YOUR WEBSITE’S METADATA
A website’s metadata contains the basic information about that website. This is one of the things that Google picks up when it crawls your pages. And it’s what will be shown when one of your pages is included in search results. So it’s important to keep this updated as your business evolves. If you change the focus of the page (or your business), make sure you update each page’s metadata. This applies to your website pages and to your blog posts.
Every website builder has a place for your metadata. Squarespace, Wix and Kajabi make it part of the overall design process. If you use WordPress, you’ll need an SEO plugin.
Metadata consists of three elements:
A focus keyword or phrase: This is the one word or phrase that is the most relevant to that page. The one thing that page should be indexed for. Don’t worry though - you’ll get more places for keywords in the page content.
Meta Title (or SEO title): This is the title of your page and what appears in the browser window and when you drop the link in Facebook.
Meta Description: This is a few sentences that summarize the content of the page. The description should be very specific. It’s what will appear in search results to tell the searcher about that page (and compel them to click on it).
You should have these things filled in on every page of your website, even the minor pages. But don’t use the exact same description on every page. The goal is to tell Google what the page is about and their tech is so advanced that you will be penalized for not giving them unique info.
USE STRATEGIC KEYWORDS AND LINKING
Google’s bots crawl every page they find on your website and suck up all the relevant info. That means they are looking for keywords that Google can use to index your pages.
Your keywords are best used in header tags (h1, h2, h3, h4) so they stand out to the bots. That’s one of the things Google is looking for.
It’s important not to overdo it though. Google actually punishes people who overuse keywords to try and game the system. Write your page for humans, not for an algorithm.
The other important thing to do in your pages is to use internal linking. That means you’re linking one page to another. The best place to do this is in your blog posts. Whatever you’re writing about should reference what you offer or another blog post and link to that page.
This helps Google navigate your website. Their bots will only crawl what they can easily find. So internal linking helps them discover your pages and better understand the structure of your website.
RELEVANT CONTENT
It’s no secret that there is a lot of noise on the Internet these days. Millions of pieces of content are produced every day on all the platforms. Yours can easily get lost.
That’s why it’s important not to write generic content that is targeting everyone. The goal is to position yourself as an expert in what you do. That means producing content that speaks to your expertise and showcases how you can help the right clients and customers.
The point of content on your website is to drive traffic. The more traffic you have, the greater your authority in your subject matter. And the greater your authority, the higher Google will rank you. It takes a lot of work - SEO is not a one-and-done kind of thing.
When you’re planning your blog posts, choose topics that your ideal audience would be searching for. What do they need to know that you can teach them? Write in enough detail that you help them solve their problem, but not so much that they get bored reading it. Then once you have your post written, you can repurpose it on social media.
Showcasing what you know helps Google understand what your website and business are all about.
SET UP GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE
The best way to ensure that your website is found and properly indexed by Google is to set up Google Search Console (which is free).
The console is where you can monitor your website’s search performance. To do this accurately, you’ll want to provide Google with your website’s sitemaps. These are listings of every page of your website, mapped out so that Google can understand the layout.
You just need to create a property in the Google console and insert your sitemaps. Once you’ve done that, Google will continuously update your maps as you build out your website.
Every builder generates a sitemap. Google “find my sitemap on [your builder]” to get the instructions for how to find yours.
STAY ON TOP OF THIS IMPORTANT ASPECT OF YOUR BUSINESS
SEO is a continuous process – it’s not a set it and forget it kind of thing. As your business grows and evolves, your SEO will need to change to fit it. It’s a good idea to get into the habit of reviewing your SEO at least once a year to make sure you’re maximizing your opportunities and teaching the world’s biggest search engine (and social media) how to index your website to be found by the people who need you.
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